


His Galatea

by VorpalGirl



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Angst and Humor, Art, Artist!Genesis, Artists, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Greek and Roman Mythology - Freeform, Humility, M/M, Pygmalion, Pygmalion and Galatea, Romance, Sculpture, Terrible Customers, the Goddess - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VorpalGirl/pseuds/VorpalGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Genesis of Rhapsodos has it all: wealth, privilege, and fame as the village of Banora's most celebrated artist. Yet as the locals know, the sculptor has an ego to match and when his selfishness and arrogance reach their peak, he is cursed by the Goddess...to fall in love with one of his own creations. </p>
<p>(Pygmalion and Galatea AU; inspired by tumblr's "greenhorn-turk")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenhorn-turk](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=greenhorn-turk).



> This story is dedicated to tumblr user and fabulous roleplayer "greenhorn-turk", whose sharing of one of those List of AUs I Really Need type posts inspired this whole thing; after seeing "Pygmalion and Galatea AU" on there, I could not resist. 
> 
> The original outline-slash-kinda-drabbley-thing is still up on my tumblr (vorpalgirl.tumblr.com) for those who wish to read it, but it's a lot messier and leaves out a lot of parts that are being fleshed out; THIS is the properly ficced version. Both the original outline (which spoils for the ending, of course) and this version (in snippets) are on my tumblr blog under the tag "His Galatea" as well as "my fic", but I'm transitioning the "properly ficced" version to here for those who prefer to read on AO3. 
> 
> Those who're familiar with the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea can guess roughly where this is going, but it's the journey, not the destination, right? ;) Hope you enjoy!

 

“I must have a block of the finest, purest, smoothest, palest white marble you can find,” Genesis announced. “About…yay tall, or preferably, taller — and about yay wide…”  
  
Angeal blinked. It was one thing for the famous sculptor to be picky about stone quality, but…  
  
“That’s…pretty large,” he said cautiously.   
  
“It’s intended to be a life size piece,” the artist said airily. “It  _has_  to be large. If it is any smaller, it will not work.”  
  
“A life size  _what_?” the mason asked.   
  
“Person. Full-figure, standing,” he replied.  
  
“…you’re asking for a block of stone well over six feet high,” Angeal pointed out. “Are you sculpting a life-size  _giant_?”  
  
Genesis, as dramatic as ever, sighed: “No…more like an angel.” He flicked his hair from his face with an overly-practiced elegance, before crossing his arms. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand — certainly not before I’ve even started. The important thing is: can you get the stone?”  
  
“Well…yeah,” he said, bemused. “We can  _procure_  it. Same quarry we got your last few pieces from should be the perfect source, but that’s miles away, and it’s a damn big hunk of rock. So, we can get it, but between the sheer size and the cost of transporting something that unwieldy, the expense —”  
  
“The  _expense_  is worth it, and the monetary cost of no consequence,” Genesis cut in, waving one dismissive hand. “The piece requires what the piece  _requires_ , and it is not a vision that can go uncarved.”  
  
It took a great deal of willpower not to roll his eyes at his best customer, but somehow Angeal managed. “Well…if you’re sure —”  
  
“My friend, I am surer of this than I ever have been of anything in my life,” Genesis said, and there was a gleam in his eyes, a fire behind them, that Angeal had seldom seen.   
  
The man was moody, he’d admit; melodramatic, absolutely. But he was also stubborn as hell, and if he wanted to foot the bill for the biggest non-monumental hunk of marble Angeal’s shop had sold or delivered in over a year, well, Angeal supposed he’d just have to indulge him. A sale like that meant food on the table for months, after all. But there were details that needed to be worked out, that the redhead was often too impulsive to consider.  
  
“…it’ll take some time to find the right piece,” he warned.  
  
“Oh believe me, I am well aware,” Genesis said, waving his hand again. “Especially for  _this_  piece; I will have nothing but the best, and will settle for nothing less.”  
  
“With a size like that, you’ll have to come to the shop to pick out the final slab,” he added, because he could tolerate a few 40 lb pieces being sent back for ‘imperfections’, but a piece that would weigh well over eight  _tons_? Hell no. He would not tolerate having to transport that more than he absolutely had to. It would be far too much work for far too many employees, and he wasn’t the kind of slave-driver who would do that to them more than necessary without due compensation. And that would be a hell of a lot of compensation to expend on one order. He knew the artist well enough to know that much.  
  
“Fine, fine…” Genesis said, rolling his eyes. “Just so long as you  _find_ it, I don’t care.”  
  
And that was that. 

***

  
It took a good two weeks to find a slab that Angeal would even consider to be perfect enough to  _maybe_  satisfy his single pickiest client. When he managed to find the most flawless hunk of marble that size that he had ever seen, he finally decided to give it a go and sent his most enthusiastic apprentice, Zack, to pick the man up.  
  
Not because Zack was the most experienced, mind, but because he was the most cheerful, resilient, sociable and above all  _forgiving_  member of Angeal’s team…and thus the least likely to actually throttle Genesis of Rhapsodos before they got anywhere near the shop.   
  
Even Zack pouted at the assignment, but as always, he accepted it with grace. Which in his case meant an almost over the top “mission accepted!” and a cheerful salute that was probably only half-joking; dealing with Banora’s most famously talented and infamously obnoxious artist had been compared to a battle more than once by various people. Zack himself had had to make multiple trips to the man’s house before, lugging 40-100lb pieces of stone back and forth until he made up his mind about which one was “good enough” for whatever he had decided to work on that week, and had managed not to want to slug the man even once.   
  
Well, maybe he had _wanted_  to, a little bit. But he never admitted it out loud, which was enough for his fellow apprentices to privately nominate him for sainthood. Kunsel, for one, saw him off on this latest trip with a pack of sweets and an encouraging squeeze to the shoulder.  
  
Zack was rather amused by this, and in particular by Kunsel’s expression. “Seriously? You act like I’m journeying to the mouth of Hell.”  
  
Kunsel’s gaze grew distant, and his look somber, as if remembering a past trauma. “You are,” he said. He shuddered, clearly remembering a time before Zack’s arrival when he himself had had to deal with the redheaded hellion.   
  
Zack laughed. “He’s not  _that_  bad!”   
  
“He threw a hunk of marble at me because it wasn’t the right shade of pink,” Kunsel said. “Even though it matched the color swatch he gave us  _exactly_.”  
  
That did, admittedly, cause Zack to raise an eyebrow “Did you try to argue with him about it?”  
  
“I showed him the swatch, and he insisted it  _still_  wasn’t the right color. Which was about two seconds before he chucked it at my head.”  
  
Zack chuckled. “Well, there’s your problem. Your first reaction should have been to just eat it, and say ‘Sorry sir, we’ll try again’.”  
  
“We already  _had_ ,” Kunsel grumbled. “ _Twice_.”  
  
Zack shrugged. “Well, this is why he’s coming to  _us_  this time instead’a the other way around.”  
  
Kunsel winced at that. “Yes, which is why  _I’m_  taking my lunch the moment he gets here. How can you be so calm? You’re gonna have to deal with him when he decides that flawless hunk of stone is somehow completely horrible. And then you’re gonna have to drive him home. ”  
  
Zack shook his head. “He’s picky, yeah, but he’s still a customer, and for all that he’s kind of an asshole about it, at least he pays well.”  
  
Kunsel regarded him for a moment in silence. “This is why you always have to deal with him,” he murmured, before shaking his own head. “Good luck,” he said, wandering off to find a type of busywork that could be easily dropped as soon as the Horra of Banora got there.  
  
Zack watched him go, and finally allowed himself a small frown. “Threw it at his _head_ …?” He shuddered.   
  
Well, at least  _this_  piece would be too big to toss, he figured. So they didn’t have to worry about _that_.  
  
He still took a moment to make the Sign of the Goddess before he left, though. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It's been a rough week...or several...but I wanted to get something up again and this was so close to done it seemed silly not to finally update it. I'm running on empty as I press the Post button here, so lemme know if you find any typos or whatnot. Hope you enjoy!)

When Zack arrived at the estate of Banora’s most infamous artist, he found that he wasn’t the first visitor of the day. As he pulled up, an almost cherubic blond wearing a decidedly un-cherubic expression was closing the gate and, from the look on his face, resisting the urge to do it violence.

“Um,” Zack said. “Is...everything all right?”  
  
The blond sighed out pretty much an entire lungful of air. “All right,” he growled. “ _All right?_ After dealing with _that_ bastard? Ha! That’s a good one.”  
  
“Did...did he throw anything at you?” His conversation with Kunsel from earlier suddenly had him a little...concerned.  
  
He eyed Zack speculatively. “Sounds like you’ve dealt with him before.”  
  
“Yeah,” Zack said. “I work for the shop that sells him all his stone. For the sculptures, you know?”  
  
“Oh Goddess Almighty,” the man said. “If he’s this much of a jerk about _groceries_ , I can only _imagine_ how he’d be like about his materials.”  
  
“He’s...picky,” Zack admitted, with a small smile. “That’s why I’m here, actually. His current order is for a really huge piece, so we’re making sure he likes it _before_ it leaves the shop.”  
  
“Smart,” the blond said, nodding. “Too bad I can’t do that with his fruit.”  
  
Zack blinked, and looked at him, head tilted. “Why not? It’s not like there’s apples that weigh over a ton, is it?”  
  
“Pfft! No,” the blond said, and Zack was pleased to see he’d finally gotten a smile out of him, small and fleeting though it was. “But he pays me to _deliver_ that shit, so he doesn’t have to _bother_ going out. So I’m not lucky enough to have that option.”  
  
“Ahh,” Zack said. “Gotcha.” He shot him a sympathetic look. “Sorry you have to deal with that then.”

“Eh,” he said, waving off his concern. “Still better than being jobless. I don’t have that many 'marketable' skills, and I have my mother to support, back home. I can deal with a few assholes if I’m at least paid for it.” His face almost said otherwise — that tight, carefully-closed-off look that some people got when they were _forcing_ themselves not to care. Zack had a feeling the guy was used to bottling things up.  
  
“Hm,” Zack said. “What’s your name?”  
  
“Huh?” the blond said, blinking. “Oh! Sorry, I got so wrapped up in bitching about—Cloud. It’s Cloud, of Nibelheim. And you?” he said.

“Zack,” he replied cheerfully. “Of Gongaga— what!?”  
  
“Sorry,” Cloud said, stifling a snicker. “I’ve … never heard that name before, is all, and the way you — sorry, it’s just kind of a…”  
  
“What?” Zack said.  
  
“Kind of a...backwater name, is all. Was that a Mideelian accent?”  
  
“Mideel? _Way_ off! Well, sort of off,” Zack admitted. “Though, it is pretty far from here — different village. That said,” he teased. “ ' _Nibelheim'_? That doesn’t sound ‘backwater’ to you?”  
  
Cloud laughed a little — a nice, throaty laugh that Zack decided he liked the sound of. He found himself wanting to bring it out again. “Yeah, that it is,” he replied. “Not much work _there_ either, these days. It’s why I came here: they say it’s been doing well and getting bigger, and — I figured, maybe at the orchards…” He sighed.  
  
“Yeah,” Zack said sympathetically. “But the harvests aren’t always on time. I bet you got here when they weren’t fruiting, huh? I had the same problem, when I first got here a few years ago — no harvest to actually, you know, _harvest_.”  
  
“Glad to hear it’s not just me,” Cloud said dryly.  
  
“Definitely not,” Zack said, giving him a gentle smile, before shooting him his own speculative look. “You know, though — you look like you might have some muscle on you, yeah? We could always use some extra hands for grunt work — if you’re willing to work hard, I’m sure I can convince Angeal to give you some work, even if it’s just the occasional bit of stone-lugging, yeah? And he pays well enough.”  
  
“Really?” Cloud seemed astonished.  
  
Zack found himself grinning a little at the response.  “Really.”  
  
“Dear Goddess, _yes_ ,” Cloud murmured. “I could always use the work. And —”  
  
“And it’d be nice to do some work that didn’t involve a huge amount of stressing over how picky your client is?” Zack said, grinning wider.  
  
“Yes,” Cloud admitted. His look was a little sheepish, but Zack just laughed.  
  
“Yeah, Angeal expects hard work, but he doesn’t expect outright miracles,” he assured him. “If you want, I could put in a good word with him?”  
  
Cloud looked like he just received a gift from the Goddess herself. “You’d do that for me?”  
  
“Sure!” he said. “Just lemme know where to contact you, so I can let you know when he could use you. Or — if you want, I could give you a ride back? If you don’t have anywhere else to be, anyway.”  
  
Cloud hesitated. “With Mr. Rhapsodos?”  
  
“...maybe?”  
  
Cloud winced. “I...think I’ll head there myself, if I can. I have a mount, anyway,” he said, gesturing to the scruffy looking chocobo that was pecking around the edges of the street.    
  
Zack suppressed a smirk at the sight; now he realized what its rider’s hair reminded him of! Not that he would say that out _loud_ , of course.  
  
Well, not until he knew him a bit better.  
  
Instead, he said: “I see. Well, the directions are easy enough to remember — bit of a long ride, but if you head out now, you’ll certainly beat us there. Just head straight down this road —” he gestured back down the way he came. “Until you get to the house with all the purple flowers in the yard, then hang a left down that alley so you can get to the street that parallels the river. Stay on that long enough and you’ll find it, just past the orchards. It’ll have a bunch of great big uncut stones in the yard out front — can’t miss it.”  
  
Cloud glanced down the road, mouthing the directions to himself. “Left at the purple-flowers-house, down the riverfront, past the orchards?” he said.  
  
“Yep! You got it,” Zack said, pleased to see he had a good memory — it was certainly something Angeal would appreciate in a worker. “Just don’t bother crossing the river — shop’s still on this side of it. You can go in ahead of me, by the way — just tell the big burly guy with the black hair and the frowny eyebrows that I sent you, and why you’re there.”  
  
Cloud nodded, that small smile returning. “Thanks,” he said.  
  
"No problem!" Zack said. "Any time, man."   
  
There was a pause then on Cloud's part, before he added: “You're going in to deal with...him, right? Like right now?"  
  
"Yep!"  
  
"...good luck.”  
  
Zack laughed. “Thanks,” he said, hopping off the cart.  
  
“I mean it,” Cloud said, his expression darkening as he caught his eye. “He’s in a foul mood today.”  
  
Zack paused. He was sure that he wasn’t in immediate danger or anything — after all, he didn’t have anything chuck-able to deliver. Right?   
  
...right?  
  
He felt his smile faltering a little.  
  
“How...foul?” he said.  
  
“The only reason I don’t have bruises from oranges being chucked at my head is because I have good reflexes,”  Cloud said.   
  
“...what _is_ it with him and people’s _heads_ ?” Zack muttered, frowning at the mental image.  
  
Cloud shrugged, hands spread in a ‘hell if I know’ gesture. “I dunno. Just watch out for your face.”  
  
“Noted,” Zack said, taking a deep breath, and letting it out in a huff. “At least my news is good?”   
  
“Good?” Cloud said. “Or...potentially enough to get his hopes up before his super-picky ass decides to throw a fit because the rock isn’t absolutely, _miraculously_ perfect enough?”  
  
A moment of silence hung between them, and it felt as heavy as that hunk of supposedly perfect marble.  
  
“Yeah,” Cloud said, giving him a somber nod as he mounted up. “Good luck.”  
  
As Zack watched him go, he realized that maybe he would need it.


End file.
